ReviewPrimary health care research & development2018
Improving quality of referral letters from primary to secondary care: a literature review and discussion paper.
Review in Primary health care research & development, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interventions to improve referrals from primary care to outpatient specialist services for chronic conditions: a systematic review and framework synthesis update.Systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Decision Support Systems for Healthcare Referral Strategies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- Reimagining the family physician-specialist relationship amid the primary care crisis: Harnessing power for better collaboration.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Enhancing referrals and utilization of the Healthy Lifestyle clinic: a pre-and post intervention study in primary health care.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Asking the Right Questions: Benchmarking Large Language Models in the Development of Clinical Consultation Templates.Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing · 2026Article
- Observational
- Assessing Mental Illness Referral Request Acceptance: A Nationwide E-Referral Data From Saudi Arabia.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Assessing Quality of Referrals to a Community-Based Chronic Pain Clinic.Canadian journal of pain = Revue canadienne de la douleur · 2024Article
- Informative value of referral letters from general practice for child and adolescent mental healthcare.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- Referral assessment and patient waiting time decisions in specialized mental healthcare: an exploratory study of early routine collection of PROM (LOVePROM).BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences in Primary Care: Challenges and Considerations.Pediatrics · 2022Article
- Essential information for transition of care for frail elderly patients in Japan: A qualitative study.Journal of general and family medicine · 2022Article
- Referral Patterns in Oral Medicine: A Retrospective Analysis of an Oral Medicine University Center in Southern Italy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Improving osteoarthritis management in primary healthcare: results from a quasi-experimental study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2021Article
- Article
- Transforming the specialist referral and consultation process in Canada.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2019Article
- Quality and continuity of information between primary care physicians and rheumatologists.BMC rheumatology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundReferral letters sent from primary to secondary or tertiary care are a crucial element in the continuity of patient information transfer. Internationally, the need for improvement in this area has been recognised. This aim of this study is to review the current literature pertaining to interventions that are designed to improve referral letter quality.
methodsA search strategy designed following a Problem, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome model was used to explore the PubMed and EMBASE databases for relevant literature. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were established and bibliographies were screened for relevant resources.
resultsA total of 18 publications were included in this study. Four types of interventions were described: electronic referrals were shown to have several advantages over paper referrals but were also found to impose new barriers; peer feedback increases letter quality and can decrease 'inappropriate referrals' by up to 50%; templates increase documentation and awareness of risk factors; mixed interventions combining different intervention types provide tangible improvements in content and appropriateness.
conclusionSeveral methodological considerations were identified in the studies reviewed but our analysis demonstrates that a combination of interventions, introduced as part of a joint package and involving peer feedback can improve.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.